North Korea faces sanctions for third nuclear test

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UNITED NATIONS — The world moved closer Tuesday to punishing North Korea for its latest nuclear test as the United States introduced a draft resolution, backed by China, with new sanctions aimed at reining in Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and preventing their export to other countries.

In response, Pyongyang threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

The resolution would subject North Korea ‘‘to some of the toughest sanctions imposed by the United Nations,’’ Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters. She called the scope of the sanctions ‘‘exceptional.’’

The proposed resolution, worked out by Rice and China’s UN Ambassador Li Baodong over the last three weeks, reflects the growing anger of the UN’s most powerful body at North Korea’s defiance of three previous sanctions resolutions that demanded a halt to all nuclear and missile tests.

The draft resolution targets for the first time the illicit activities of North Korean diplomats, the country’s illicit banking relationships, and its illegal transfers of large quantities of cash, Rice said. It also adds new travel restrictions.

As word emerged of the plan, Pyongyang threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

Any fresh international sanctions are certain to infuriate North Korea, which has claimed the right to build nuclear weapons to deter alleged US aggression. Citing the US-led push for sanctions, the ­Korean People’s Army ­Supreme Command on Tuesday warned of “surgical strikes” meant to unify the ­divided Korean Peninsula and of an indigenous, “precision nuclear striking tool.”

Hours after North Korea carried out its third atomic blast on Feb. 12, all 15 council members approved a press statement condemning the nuclear test and pledging further action. The swift, unanimous response set the stage for a fourth round of sanctions.

The sanctions have been aimed at trying to derail the country’s rogue nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

In addition to barring North Korea from testing or using nuclear or ballistic missile technology, they also ban it from importing or exporting material for these programs.

North Korea’s neighbors and the West condemn the North’s efforts to develop long-range nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States as a serious threat to Northeast Asia’s delicate security and a drain on the precious resources that could go to North Korea’s largely destitute people.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a response to US hostility that dates to the Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula technically in a state of war.

North Korea says Washington and others are going beyond mere economic sanctions and expanding into blunt aggression and military acts.

Secretary of State John Kerry said President Obama and the American people would like to see North Korea’s leader, Kim Jung Un, promote peace and engage in talks.

“Rather than threaten to abrogate and threaten to move in some new direction, the world would be better served ... if he would engage in a legitimate dialogue, legitimate negotiations, in order to resolve not just American concerns, but the concerns of the Japanese and the South Koreans and the Russians and the Chinese, everybody in the region,” Kerry said in Doha, Qatar. “That’s our hope.”